A propaganda machine?

Tags

birds, conservation, Grouse shooting, Hen harrier day, Hen Harriers, moorland, North York Moors, persecution, wildlife crime

A press of a button at the North York Moors National Park Centre lets you listen to this local ‘character’ who I have recorded here.

 

A statue of a gamekeeper giving a balanced view of grouse shooting? Like hell it is. This would be bad enough if it was from an actual grouse-shooting estate.

How on earth can this be the official view of a National Park? Just what is involved in ‘looking after the moors’?  I think we know – just look at the appalling record of raptor persecution in North Yorkshire. [1]

What we have here seems to be blatant propaganda justifying criminal activity and I can’t believe that the National Park in which I live has this as its official line.

Below is a letter I’ve just sent to them.

To the North York Moors National Park Authority,

As a resident of the North York Moors National Park I am writing to you regarding the practice of grouse shooting within the park boundaries.  With North Yorkshire having been named as England’s worst county for the persecution of birds of prey why is it that our National Park supports an activity that has been repeatedly linked to wildlife crime?  Why can’t people enjoy the sight of a Hen Harrier or a Short-eared Owl flying across open countryside on their weekend walks? Where are the Peregrine Falcons, Ravens and Buzzards?

In addition to the illegal killing of raptors there are several other issues linked to the forms of land management associated with, in particular, driven grouse shooting. For example, how exactly does heather burning improve the landscape of our National Parks?  A recent study by Leeds University states ‘The owners of grouse moors who set fire to heather to promote green shoots for young birds to eat are polluting rivers and contributing to climate change‘. In addition, the resulting patchwork looks awful.

This study further suggests that water from catchments dominated by grouse moors leads to increased water bills for many customers (since the costs of water cleaning are met by the customer not the polluter) and perhaps a greater risk of flooding.

So why is this allowed to happen within the National Park? And please, just to save you the time and effort, don’t invoke the need for grouse shooting to maintain heather moorland or the need for heather moorland to maintain grouse– was there really none of either before 1800?

The Cairngorms National Park is now beginning to address the issue of driven grouse shooting. It states, ‘While this single issue land management has achieved year-on-year record-breaking grouse numbers for sporting purposes, we consider that this activity comes at significant environmental cost’. In words that can equally be applied to The North York Moors National Park, it adds that illegal persecution of birds of prey to protect grouse has a ‘very damaging effect’ on conservation and public understanding, adding: ‘There is an unfortunate record of illegal raptor persecution in and around the national park, which risks undermining the park’s reputation as a well-managed place for nature and wildlife tourism’.

Will the North York Moors National Park reconsider the status of driven grouse shooting within its boundaries? Will you speak out more forcefully against wildlife crimes being committed in the region on and around grouse moors? Will the ‘gamekeeper’ at the Moors Centre be rerecorded to be less of a propaganda machine? Do you have any powers to influence or alter existing practice in this industry when it takes place within the boundaries of the National Park? I would like to hear your views and to learn more about what powers the Park authorities have to monitor and affect what happens in the National Park related to this issue.

Yours in anticipation,

Steve Mills

• http://www.wateratleeds.org/fileadmin/documents/water_at_leeds/EMBER_2_page_exec_summary.pdf
• http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/news/home-news/hunting-estates-harming-wildlife-to-boost-grouse.26083354

 

 

Britain’s deserts

Tags

birds, Birds of prey, environment, George Monbiot, Hen Harrier, moorland, nature, photography

So, Hen Harrier Day is over. It was uplifting, and those of us who were there, dripping and paddling, felt a sense of cohesion and inspiration from being with a group of committed, like-minded people who have simply had enough of the illegal persecution of birds of prey. And it’s now so important that this momentum builds.

The fact that the likes of the Daily Telegraph is writing such tendentious, scurrilous, ill-informed pieces show that some people, somewhere, are running scared. Maybe in the future we will see Hen Harriers and other raptors living unmolested on our grouse moors. Let’s hope so, but it could be some time in coming. Nevertheless, I’m in it for the long haul.

In the meantime, with our attention focused on driven grouse moors, let’s not forget all the other areas of our uplands that are also harrier – and raptor – free. In fact many of them are pretty much bird free altogether. In April I spent a day in Snowdonia – one of our national park ‘jewels’. After 8 hours of walking my birdlist was……… five. Five species – in a national park for God’s sake. If it hadn’t been for half a dozen Herring Gulls scavenging sandwiches at the summit of Snowdon the total of individual birds seen wouldn’t have been much more than five. A few Ravens, a singing wren, two Meadow Pipits and a Pied Wagtail in the car park completed the list. After eight hours in a National Park in April. Wow.

Raptors? Don’t be silly, there wasn’t a single one. Why would there be raptors? There was absolutely nothing for them to eat. I say it again – in a national park in April.

Bird, mammal and insect free

George Monbiot’s term for these uplands is the most apt – they are ‘sheepwrecked’. (1) They are a barren, green, short-cropped desert, the result of subsidised overgrazing that we – you and I – pay for. It seems that, in 2010, the average Welsh sheep farm on the hills received £53 000 in subsidies. The average net income per farm was £33 000. Hang on, that’s a deficit of      £20 000 per farm. That’s right, in creating a green desert each farm incurred a loss of £20 000. So, we pay £53 grand a year to each farm to encourage them to, in effect, remove wildlife and wildlife habitat from the hills. So no harriers there either, then. And this is considered normal in our national parks. Let’s just do that again. We – you and I – pay £53 000 per farm to create an upland desert.

And it’s not just in Wales that these green deserts proliferate. There are huge swathes of English and Scottish uplands, much of which is in national parks, where birdlists would stay well inside single figures. To quote Monbiot,

Sheep farming in this country is a slow-burning ecological disaster, which has done more damage to the living systems of this country than either climate change or industrial pollution.(2)

And it gets worse. Before 2004, subsidies were paid to farmers according to how many animals they had, but since then they have been paid in accordance with how much land is farmed. This has made it financially advantageous for hill farmers to remove any remaining scrub etc. on their land to increase their eligibility for subsidies and, in so doing, further reduce its wildlife potential. It’s clearly a nonsensical way to go about things.

One of the traps that we, as humans, often fall into is believing that things have always been as they are now. In the case of our uplands they haven’t always been as they are now. Grazing by sheep has created the current lifeless state of much of them. Hardly anything survives their relentless molars. But, when any change is mooted, the prophecies of doom come thick and fast, e.g. Will Cockbain, until 2012 the National Farmers’ Union spokesman on hill farming, ‘If the hills are not grazed, they will turn to scrub and trees, which may look scenic but will decrease biodiversity.’ (3) Good God! Less biodiversity? Could that be possible? Could we be heading for a birdlist of zero? You simply couldn’t make such nonsense up.

Beautiful, but empty

Sheep farming is a particularly unproductive and damaging use of our uplands and it’s about time that we, in Britain, had a look at the whole issue of our upland areas. Their current state is an economic and environmental disaster. And that’s not to even mention the rain that now streams straight off the scoured hills to create flooding misery downstream. Let’s think beyond the constraining prism of the present. We need to get past all this trotted-out nonsense about sheep farming being vital in maintaining the land as it always has been. It isn’t and it hasn’t. It used to be richer, more diverse and much more full of life. We need to develop a vision of what these areas could be. We need to discuss what we think the uplands are for and then find a way of changing them for the better, both for wildlife – harriers included – and, as a result, for us and our experiences of being in them.

The rich man’s playground – at our expense

Tags

birds, Birds of prey, moorland, nature, persecution, photography

More than 10,000 people supported a recent petition regarding the licensing of grouse moors in the UK (1). This petition asked that those moors on which there was proven evidence of criminal activity against wildlife – often involving birds of prey – would lose their licence for a period of time. Thus the owner would be deprived of income as a result of their involvement in criminal activity and would have every incentive to get their house in order. Surely this would be a sound piece of legislation. What is there to object to? It makes perfect sense. After all, if there is no criminal activity there’s no problem.

Unfortunately DEFRA (the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) didn’t see it that way. Passing the 10,000 signature threshold, the petition triggered a required response. This duly came and not only failed to support the idea but virtually ignored the whole issue of grouse shooting, instead offering platitudes and waffling on about the economic benefits of shooting in general (2). However, despite the government’s unwillingness to engage with the issue, one would have thought that they would at least have been aware of a strength of feeling about this matter and perhaps trodden a little more carefully as a result.

Not a chance. Instead the government has looked at the subsidy it pays to grouse moor owners (- you mean there’s a subsidy?) and decided that it’s not enough. So now it’s been increased from £30 per hectare to £56 (3). Whoa, hold on a minute. First of all it seems that the government, as part of subsidies given to upland ‘farmers’, pays wealthy owners of grouse moors regular money from us UK taxpayers and now – following public concern about abuses in grouse moor management, for heaven’s sake – is virtually doubling this subsidy. Why? Why do these owners receive any such subsidy in the first place? We know that grouse moors depend on criminal activity in the form of the illegal killing of all kinds of wildlife – from hares to foxes to Hen Harriers – anything that might reduce the number of grouse that can be blasted from the sky. It’s been well documented (4) (5). And now the government is sticking two fingers up at anyone who is concerned about how these vast tracts of our uplands are ‘managed’. Of course, for ‘managed’ read, in many cases, ‘illegally cleared of birds of prey’.

We’re paying to keep this wildlife-free!

In not doing more than simply acknowledging this widely-supported petition the government is, in effect, saying that the leisure pursuits of a small, elite club are simply not to be interfered with. And, what’s more, they’re saying they’re going to pay them more of your money to help them enjoy themselves. So there. Stuff your petition and say goodbye to a bit more of your hard-earned cash.

In the meantime we are deprived of seeing Hen Harriers, Peregrines, Goshawks, Golden Eagles etc. soaring over the hills. And now – you just couldn’t make it up – we’re paying double for the privilege.

Enough is enough. It’s about time we stopped pussy-footing around this issue and stood up to be counted. If you’re interested in joining a peaceful protest about the illegal killing of our birds of prey, organised for August 10th at various venues, see http://birdersagainst.org/projects/hen-harrier-day

Hen Harrier – photo not taken in the UK!

Moor than meets the eye?

Tags

birds, Birds of prey, environment, moorland, nature, persecution, photography

Now I’ve heard it all. The Moorland Association is putting itself forward as the champion of a bird of prey! This organisation is the representative body of grouse moor owners in England and Wales. It says, ‘Britain’s smallest birds of prey are flying in to nest on English grouse moors which have helped stave off their downfall.’ A new report, commissioned by the Association themselves, states that numbers of Merlin have increased on moorland that is being intensively ‘managed’ for grouse shooting (1). Many newspapers have picked this up and run the story, giving the Moorland Association a pat on the back in the process. The Merlin does indeed seem to be doing well on some grouse moors and seeing one of these beautiful little falcons on the moors enhances any upland walk. So that’s great.

But, wait a minute, isn’t there another question waiting to be asked here? What about all the other raptors on moorland in the north of England? Where are the Buzzards, the Peregrines, the Goshawks and the Hen Harriers? Also doing well? I’m afraid not. Pretty much absent, in fact, even though there’s plenty of available habitat. It’s been estimated there are sufficient territories for around 300 pairs of Hen Harriers to live in England’s uplands. How many successfully did so last year? None. Not a single chick was raised.

Where are you?

Now, why on earth could that be, given that the management of our moors is in such caring, raptor-loving hands? Relentless, illegal persecution year after year is cited in numerous scientific reports as a major reason for their absence. The same is happening in central and eastern Scotland where there are also eagles to be exterminated. The Golden Eagle, that Scottish icon, would be soaring over many more Scottish uplands if they were allowed to do so (2). So many of these incidents occur on or near managed grouse moors. (3) Coincidence? Hardly. Nothing stops those with a vested interest in ‘grouse production’. Not even the law. Poisoning, trapping, shooting – you name it – of anything that might possibly threaten a grouse chick. They must all be destroyed. It’s illegal killing that is cited again and again. It’s no coincidence that the Merlin happens to be our smallest raptor and not considered a threat by the moorland ‘managers’.

For the Moorland Association to be making capital out of – and seeking credit for – not killing Merlins is rich indeed. There’s no ‘protection’ of raptors on managed grouse moors. As far as birds of prey are concerned, the word doesn’t seem to exist in the moorland managers’ dictionary, which goes straight from ‘persecution’ to ‘public relations’. The bottom line, and there’s no getting away from it, is that grouse shooting depends on widespread criminality. And those responsible are simply stealing our nature. Over and over again.

Where are you?

And where are you?

If you’re interested in getting details about a peaceful protest against Hen Harrier persecution click here.